So I’m a bit late on getting Cold Start up this morning because I was exhausted last night and didn’t do it then, like I usually like to, and this morning I had to take my kid to farm camp, because all he really wants to do in the summer is hang out with animals. Fine by me, really. In fact, he made a good joke yesterday about catching a bunch of ducks smoking quack, so I figure based on that, this is a decent use of his free summer time. Anyway, as I was heading back home, I found myself behind this truck, and it got me thinking about our vehicles, and how we choose to express ourselves using them as a, um, vehicle.
Like, in the case of this lifted Ford truck here, there’s a very specific persona being conveyed here. Most obvious is that skull emerging from the inky blackness of the black paint on the tailgate there, eyes aglow with, I’m guessing, malice? I mean, it’s possible the eyes are glowing red from goodwill or jolliness, but I feel that’s unlikely. Also, the eyes have vertical slit-type feline pupils?
Then there’s what appears to be a refrence to the Confederate battle flag on that metal rear-window protector thing, and that, of course, is absolutely laden with associations, very few of them good. Probably none good. The truck is lifted and has aftermarket beefy bumpers with lights and tow hooks and multiple light bars, too, well-equipped for all sorts of things, but it’s also incredibly clean and unmarred, and doesn’t seem to bear a lot of the visual documentation of hard off-road use.
So, what’s the message here? Is that Death on the tailgate? There’s some hints of a hood at the corners, so maybe. But it’s not chasing you if you see it, you’re chasing Death?
There’s no question the goal, at some level, was to intimidate with this truck’s choices. It’s just kind of strange to have such a clear, potent expression of one very specific feeling, and then that’s your vehicle for everything. Going to pick up your mom at the airport? She’s riding in the lifted DixieDeathtruck. Taking your kid to a birthday party? DixieDeathtruck. Volunteering at the animal shelter? Helping a friend move? Going to the retirement party of the professor that convinced you that art history could be your calling? DixieDeathtruck, DixieDeathtruck, DixieDeathtruck.
Also, this truck sort of demands a certain look; if a person dressed like an Orthodox Jew or a woman in a slinky Versace dress or a mom in very mom-clothes dropped out of this, it’d make you do a double-take, right?
I’m all for people putting as much personality and feeling into their cars, absolutely. I love it. But it’s also interesting to think about. And, really, I’m no different: my cars have their own distinctive look, too, and there’s plenty of ways to be incongruous when seen unfolding yourself out of one of my little shitboxen, too. None of this is a judgement!
It’s all just proof that cars are more like fashion than most of us would like to admit.
“DixieDeathTruck” & “shitboxen”. This is why I come here. Never change.
What is being said here, exactly?
My popularity owes less to any particular talent on my part than to a continued general decline in critical thinking skills under an economic system that prefers mindless conformity, because that makes for workers who are easier to control, so many people lack basic knowledge about things like science and medicine. Additionally, their experiences with things like our miserable for-profit healthcare system convince them that there is, in fact, something deeply wrong with the way things are, and it comes from the top. There is something wrong, of course, yet the elite consensus embodied in the ‘Nothing will fundamentally change’ proclamations of people alienates anyone who notices that there are fundamental problems with the ways things are structured. Unfortunately, because of that general lack of critical thinking skills I mentioned earlier, it is much easier to go the traditional route and simply cast blame for the way things are on easy targets like women, minorities, or intellectuals than do the difficult and nuanced work of separating the truth from ideological fictions. The erosion of trust under a system that intrinsically disdains trust makes people prone to believing conspiracy theories where none exist, and it’s easy for someone to traffic in those, and occasionally make what sound like anti-elite talking points, although the truth is that we are just another arm of the consensus helping to peddle distractions that keep people from forming the communal bonds with which they might finally address the basic material conditions of their own lives.
Something along those lines.
I’m going with “I’m a d-bag” as their message, but that may not be what they intended.
I think the skull thing has been done to death. I’ll see myself out now.
The only Confederate flag that mattered was a white hanky tied to a stick.
Wow, 152 comments already in one day for a ‘Cold Start’ article? Hate sells, but please don’t accept that business model and make a habit of this type of content.
Sure, it’s kinda funny, but it’s not very Autopian. I recognize that nothing Jason wrote in the article went against his usual curiosity and acceptance of automotive weirdness. But he knows the type of crowd that is drawn in when you hold that particular door open. The first paragraph was the best part of this article.
Also.. cut those tail lights in half horizontally and we are getting closer to solving the mystery of the Cirrus prototype tail lights.
I’m a bad boy. Ask my mommy.
Dollars to donuts that truck voted for Trump
This just says “Florida Man” to me… even if it’s not.
It’s a skull with no skin that still has a pair of eyes. There are no eyelids to help moisten those eyes, so of course they’re very red with dryness. Perhaps it’s an ad for Visine?
that’s why it’s so angry.
People who drive trucks like this usually seem to me to want people to think they’re ‘bad’.
And people do think they’re bad, just not the kind of bad they were hoping for.
It’s like an opossum baring its fangs to look threatening when it’s less dangerous than a house cat.
Opossums are adorable when they do that.
Opossums are adorable. And thank you for recognizing their Irish heritage with the proper spelling of their name.
I am impressed by the number of posters here who never once demonstrated any poor taste or judgement during their younger years while attempting to show the world how much of a rebel they were.
At least the truck can eventually be sold to some other young rebellious youth.
Tattoos can be a little hard to get rid of after you mature.
I confess to painting a giant skull and crossbones on the roof of my Datsun 510. In my defense, it kinda fit with the matt black paint and flame job, plus I was young and stupid!
I’m all about letting poor taste and judgement thrive. It makes things interesting. My dislike for “bro” trucks notwithstanding.
This is pretty common in nature: the bigger and scarier you can make yourself look, the less likely you are to need to actually defend yourself…
It tells you there is a good chance you can obtain a firearm by breaking into it.
Everyone in my hood would be thinking exactly that.